Was up at Chwk Lake today...looking for the old Flora T/H and I think I might have found it:



Only problem is that it was basically heading AWAY (in dark BLUE on the map) from the newer trail. I suppose it could swing back towards the North eventually, but there's that big gorge between the two.
So...was I close, or did I miss completely?



LOTS of people at the Lindeman parking area!

When I was living in the Lower Mainland, I use to hike up and down that trail quite often. It starts down the chwk lake road where there is a road cut of soft sand. The trail is quite steep and runs along a bluff at one point before joining up with the existing trail.

I have a waypoint at about 1600 metres on your side of the ravine confirming what solo75 said about the trails joining up.

I was up there yesterday and what solo said is correct. Check out my photos on fb.

No, you found it, what you have highlighted is the ancient, oldest of the trails. (you round a bend in the road and it's just after a creek on the left taking off in an Easterly direction. Very established foot base, but overgrown and un used)

The trail the others speak of links up with the current Flora route and is about 500m before the one Shadow posted about. I was asking about the same trail a few weeks ago but got no info, so did some more wandering and learned this.

That old trail will take you right to alpine staying on the East side of that gorge, never once dose it connect up with the current route. I am inclined to believe it crests the pass in between Flora-East peak and the un-named peak between it and Paleface, as I have seen the remnants of the trail heading down the valley to Flora lake, between the Flora-Paleface ridge and Wittenburg. We turned back in the avalanche chutes just below alpine, but it was still well marked, though very overgrown. Also MASSIVE piles of bear scat were seen, made us wonder about grizzly.

The other old (newer) trail is fairly short and links up with the current trail, it was probably abandoned because of the grade and lack of parking with the Lindeman/Greendrop TH so close by.

Here are some photos I took of the first portion of the trail:



And coming back down:



The red squares lead me to believe this is indeed an older trail. The fact that it is on the wrong side of the ravine, leads me to believe Giverhard's appraisal.
This was located in a righthand curve in the road, right beside a stream.

So where does the newer of the "old" ones start? The one that connects to the "newer" trail (from Lindeman parking area)?

That's the oldest one for sure. Like I said, I followed it up to where I was breaking out of trees into sub alpine. Dosn't ever meet the new (current) trail. Wish I'd had my gps along that trip to record it, but alas. It's quite a steep trail, but nowhere near as steep as it could be. Alot of manpower was put into it in it's hay-day, cut right into the hill side in places doing short switch backs. Once you get up a bit, it follows that smaller ravine (you can see it in your Google Earth map, just to the right of your blue line) and zig zags back and forth across it. That smaller ravine is clearly a frequent avalanche path.

Here I drew very roughly where the trail goes as far as I went.

The newer Old trail is just past the very last power pole, also on the left. About 100ft past.
It spits you onto the current Flora trail about 2 km up roughly. Just before the first lookout.

The old trail that meets the new one does come out on a sandy looking spur road on the Chilliwack Lake road as solo75 said and in the location giverhard said. The very old trail started out going to a mining claim and then became the original route to Flora Lake where it goes down the ravine on it's south end.

That approach later changed when the new trail was done to the top of the saddle where it now drops down to Flora Lake. Instead of dropping down to the lake where it does now the newer trail followed the ridge on the west side of Flora Lake and went down that ravine to the south end of the lake.

The very old original trail can be seen going down the mountain from that col going to the ravine.

Thanks for the additional info Wildman. Those pictures actually put it perfectly into perspective as I can recognize some of the features I could see where I turned back at.
Have you ever done the old trail in it's entirety?
Also, have you been up the valley much this summer? I keep my eyes peeled for your little honda anytime I find myself back in there. lol Hope all's well

No I have never done that whole leg. Would be interesting and may try it some day.
I have been back there fairly often this year.
Come visit when you get a chance.